LXXXIX.—­Theology justifies the evil and injustice permitted by its god, only by conceding to this god the right of the strongest, that is to say, the violation of all rights, or in commanding from men A stupid devotion.

I hear a multitude of theologians tell me on all sides, that God is infinitely just, but that His justice is not that of men!  Of what kind, or of what nature is this Divine justice then?  What idea can I form of a justice which so often resembles human injustice?  Is it not confounding all our ideas of justice and of injustice, to tell us that what is equitable in God is iniquitous in His creatures?  How can we take as a model a being whose Divine perfections are precisely contrary to human perfections?  God, you say, is the sovereign arbiter of our destinies; His supreme power, that nothing can limit, authorizes Him to do as He pleases with His works; a worm, such as man, has not the right to murmur against Him.  This arrogant tone is literally borrowed from the language which the ministers of tyrants hold, when they silence those who suffer by their violences; it can not, then, be the language of the ministers of a God of whose equity they boast.  It can not impose upon a being who reasons.  Ministers of a just God!  I tell you then, that the greatest power is not able to confer even upon your God Himself the right to be unjust to the vilest of His creatures.  A despot is not a God.  A God who arrogates to Himself the right to do evil, is a tyrant; a tyrant is not a model for men.  He ought to be an execrable object in their eyes.  Is it not strange that, in order to justify Divinity, they made of Him the most unjust of beings?  As soon as we complain of His conduct, they think to silence us by claiming that God is the Master; which signifies that God, being the strongest, He is not subjected to ordinary rules.  But the right of the strongest is the violation of all rights; it can pass as a right but in the eyes of a savage conqueror, who, in the intoxication of his fury, imagines he has the right to do as he pleases with the unfortunate ones whom he has conquered; this barbarous right can appear legitimate only to slaves, who are blind enough to think that everything is allowed to tyrants, who are too strong for them to resist.

By a foolish simplicity, or rather by a plain contradiction of terms, do we not see devotees exclaim, amidst the greatest calamities, that the good Lord is the Master?  Well, illogical reasoners, you believe in good faith that the good Lord sends you the pestilence; that your good Lord gives war; that the good Lord is the cause of famine; in a word, that the good Lord, without ceasing to be good, has the will and the right to